8 comments:

Dear Simon, I love your Blog, fantastic really. I do some woodcarving and primitive blacksmithing myself. I was wondering how you cure/dry your pieces. I've had the worst luck with pieces cracking. I'm currently bagging my pieces. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks Chris, you have some amazing knives on your blog!.I use green wood and carve it as soon as I can get some time, I keep the carving in an open plastic bag with the chippings away from any heat if I dont finish it in one sitting,the chips help quite alot I've found, some woods can be a problem for splitting though, I've a few splitting before. The Kuksa split at the front and was filled with glue this works well.To dry them I just bag them without the chipppings then oil to finish.Dont know if this is what you have been doing?.I hope this is of some help to you, and good luck with your carving.

I just found your blog. Just wonderful pieces! It so happens my own kuksa got a split last summer when I was out in the Finnish Lapland, accidentally dropped it. The split is about two centimeters long and about one millimeter wide at the top, it widens somewhat when it gets wet, think that indicates that the center of the wood is misplaced? Well, I do like the kuksa very much and would like to fix it, any advice? Have been meaning to try to stuff it with some conifer resin.

Hi Simon, I have just made my first kuksa (from a wind blown beech branch) and was wondering what oil to use on it, since obviously it has to be something that neither poisons you nor tastes too funny?!